Yazoo Brewing Co. here in Nashville is hosting a brew day for my local homebrew club, Music City Brewers, in February. They are going to make a base wort from Maris Otter with a target OG of 1.100, then do a second running with a target OG of 1.035. Basically, each member will get around 6 gal. of each and is responsible for adding their own specialty grains, hops and yeast to make a beer, then we'll probably have some sort of tasting later on. A great idea, I think, but I've never made a beer this big before.
So, any of you barleywine and/or big beer lovers care to give me some suggestions or recipe ideas? I already know what I'll do with the second runnings, so I really need help with a big beer recipe. Thanks in advance!

This stuff will be a good 'sippin' beer if all goes well. I would suggest a Scottish ale yeast (Wyeast 1728) because of the style and the yeasts alcohol tolerance. This yeast ferments slow, if it is kept cool, which is what you want. You will need to make a starter of at least 3 quarts. You can use some of the 1.035 if it is unhopped. We did make a barley wine with Wyeast 1056 (Chico) that was also good, but the gravity was still a little high on transfer to maturation. Excect cool maturation to take between 6 months to 1.5 years (for the best flavor).

I would pick a fairly high alpha hop for bittering (Brewers Gold, Target, Northern Brewer) and a nice finishing hop (Kent Goldings or Fuggles) for dry hopping. That is if you want to stay with the English style. You could go another way and make a Belgian Tripple, if the wort is not too dark. I haven't brewed any Belgian ales but add some wheat get a good Abby ale yeast. Both of these ales will be rich in flavor but thin almost like wine with a lot of complex flavors and warming, very warming. That is the real problem they have to mature so long to tame the alcohol which is 'brash' at first. This sounds like a good project. When I open my brewpub I would like to hold classes. Let me know just how they conduct this. I do have one question. Are they giving you raw wort or are they going to boil and cool it for you? In ether case be ready to pitch soon after you get home.